My First Trip to Saudi Arabia

At the time, I was 24 years old, only one year out of
university, and the most exotic place I had traveled to was
London, England. So I was excited. This was, after all, the
place that I had been 'selling' for the past year. To do
that successfully I had sold the experience to myself first.
Seeing it in person, would it live up to the ideal in my
mind? Or would it disappoint?

After getting a Saudi visit visa — a colourful green sticker
that took up a whole page in my passport — we flew to Saudi
Arabia, via New York City, on Saudi Arabian
Airlines.

After a 12-hour flight, we arrived in Jeddah. Walking through the
airport was a bit surreal. The airport we had left was
filled with people in all manner of dress, or more
accurately (because it was in the middle of August) undress:
short shorts, mini skirts, tank tops, and bikini tops. The
completely modern Jeddah airport, on the other hand, was
populated with men on pilgrimage wearing the all-white
ihram, women covered
head to toe in the
abaya, and men
wearing the traditional
thobe (also spelled thawb) and
ghutra.

My first impression of Saudi Arabia was that it was hot!! We
were visiting at the height of the summer and the
temperature was around 100F/40C or more. The other, and
lasting, impression was how 'not different' it actually was.
Certainly many of the people we met looked different,
dressed different, and spoke a different language. But it
really was not that different from home (Toronto,
Canada) — the city was well-organized, the streets were filled with cars, there were
air-conditioned malls and modern business buildings, I saw
at least one set of Golden Arches, and the grocery stores
had many familiar foods alongside the unfamiliar. The people
we met seemed to fill their days like we do at home: they
worked, cooked, shopped, and socialized — but they seemed to
go out after work more than people at home.

Our next stop was Riyadh, which is the geographic center of the
Kingdom. The city was busier and more energetic than laid-
back Jeddah. Although our schedule in Riyadh was busy
touring our client hospitals, we still had time to spend too
much money shopping in the gold souks and rubbing elbows at
a party at the Canadian embassy.

During my week-long visit to Saudi Arabia, I learned many
things that I would never have learned from a book or from
the internet. I learned that wearing the abaya is actually
pretty comfortable (even in the blisteringly hot August
weather); that wearing a head scarf means I don't have to
worry too much about doing my hair; that sand boarding is
much harder than it looks; that a sprinkle of lemon juice
elevates mulligatawny soup to a whole new level; and that
using a squat toilet is really not that bad.

My trip to Saudi Arabia didn't just teach me about Saudi
Arabia, though; it literally opened up the world to me. It
became the first of my many trips overseas and several long
trips. In fact, since joining HZA in 1998 I have spent a
total of about four years abroad, living and traveling in
more than 20 countries, including: East Timor, Honduras,
India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia,
and Cuba. I sometimes wonder if, since I keep leaving HZA
(I've left and returned three times!), my boss has mixed
feelings about sending me on that first trip!

For many of our candidates, traveling to Saudi Arabia will
be, like me, their first foray into the world … and for
many, it certainly won't be their last.